Kimberly Nunn

English 1106

Classification E3

CLASSIFICATION OF NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

     What do you think of when you think of a nursing home?  I think of adults that have gone back to child stages in their lives. They can be annoying, but you still love them at the end of the day.  This is true in most cases.  We’ve all heard the saying, “When people get older, they start to go backwards in life.”  This means that they are born and they grow up into young adults.  Once people reach a certain age, their bodies go backwards in growth.  People start to shrink, lose control of their bodily functions, and they act like a child.  When I go to work at the nursing home, I see all of this.  There are many different types of “children” that live there.  The ones that stick out the most are the talkative, complainers, and the quiet ones.

     The talkative ones can be so annoying.  I can start a conversation with one and it turns out being an hour.  I have one resident, named “Ethel,” that all I have to do is say “HI” to her and she starts telling me all about her life.  I already know everything about her because I’ve worked with her for a year now.  She is a very sweet lady and I love talking to her, but she always catches me when I am the busiest.  It might be because she doesn’t have family that comes to visit her very often, so she is just trying to get attention.  She kind of reminds me of a 3 year old that is striving for attention, which explains the going back to child stages of our lives. 

     Talkative ones tend to be complainers.  One complaint from them and it turns out being a book.  It makes me think of a preschooler complaining to a teacher about another preschooler.  They will complain about everything.  When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING!  Right down to, “They’re sitting in my spot!” There is no assigned seating in the dining room, so anyone could sit anywhere they want.  They will complain if a bulb is burned out in the hallway on the opposite side of the building from where their apartments are.  It is usually the small stuff that they complain about that doesn’t really matter.  Some complaints are: “My food is not hot enough!” “The lights are too low!” “They have my bingo card!” I could write a best-seller on, “WHAT NOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT WHEN YOU GET OLDER!”  I have one resident, named “Phyllis,” that complains about how many people we have living there.  When someone comes to check the place out, she is always the one to say, “We are all filled up, go somewhere else.”  I guess we figured out why she always asks us if we are filled up yet.

     I wish they were quiet sometimes.  The quiet ones are my favorite.  They know hard we work and I think they purposely make it easy for us or at least try.  They are so nice and polite.  This could be because they have a lot of visitors come to visit them or they just have their heads on straight.  I have a 97 year old woman resident that is always polite and asks if there is anything that she can do to help.  She helps serve meals and cleans them up afterwards.  It’s really cute to watch her with the other residents at her table.  There is at least one complainer at every table.  She tells them nicely, “Can you please stop complaining about everything. I am trying to eat my lunch.”  We all laugh because it is so cute. 

     When people work in a nursing home, it’s like working at a daycare.  There are talkative 3 year olds and kids complaining about the littlest things.  Once in awhile you will come across a shy, quiet kid.  Who ever works in a nursing home, knows what I am talking about.  The majority of residents that live a nursing act just like children.  Working in a nursing home is rough at times, but at the end of the day, I love all of them the same. They are my second family.